Lenexa police officer won’t be charged in fatal June shooting of Grandview man
The Lenexa police officer who fatally shot a Grandview man in June will not face criminal charges, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said in a Thursday afternoon news conference.
Howe said the officer was justified in shooting Jose Enrique Cartagena-Chacon, 25, who was sitting behind the wheel of his car when he was shot. Two officers were at the scene and both ordered the Grandview man to put his hands up and not touch his gun.
“In this case, both officers indicated they were concerned with their safety because they saw the firearm,” Howe said. “He would not obey their commands, and was, in fact, starting to point [the gun] toward both officers, and they felt that based on that behavior, they were concerned for their safety and feared for their life.
“… From start to finish, from the first encounter at the door till the shooting, is 10 seconds.”
“Even though you have to make a split-second decision, you got to make the right decision,” said Thomas Bowers, a Dallas, Texas, attorney for the family. “That’s the job you chose.”
In the early morning hours of June 22, officers were called to the Lenexa Crossing Apartment Homes, in the 12400 block of West 97th Terrace, after a report of a disturbance involving someone with a gun, police have said. Once officers arrived at the complex, they located a person inside a parked vehicle near the pool/clubhouse area.
Howe said the initial 911 caller said a tall Hispanic person in a blue shirt was holding a gun against the head of another person in the pool area of the apartment complex. The caller reportedly said that she was in a car nearby.
The responding officers reportedly saw a car with its lights on and approached it. One officer, identified only as Officer A, approached the driver’s door and saw a Hispanic man, later identified as Cartagena-Chacon, in the driver’s seat. The second officer, who was identified only as Officer B, approached the passenger side.
Howe showed footage of each officer’s body camera, showing the two arrive on scene and approach the vehicle, then what happened during the shooting.
The gun Cartagena-Chacon had on his lap was a CO2 pellet gun that wasn’t loaded, Howe said Thursday. The two people who were around Cartagena-Chacon before the 911 call was made, as well as officers who responded, weren’t aware that it was an unloaded pellet gun, Howe said.
“I just know that those two individuals were emphatic,” Howe said. “They thought they were going to get shot.”
Lenexa Police Chief Dawn Layman said it doesn’t matter whether the weapon was a pellet gun or that it wasn’t loaded during the stop.
“Our officers don’t know,” she said. “They don’t have a crystal ball to say, ‘Is it or is it not?’ You’re not going to be able to tell that standing either side. But if somebody points a gun at you, that’s a threat.”
Added Howe: “I’d say 99.9% of the people in our community, they saw that, they would think that’s a real firearm.”
Cartagena-Chacon was sitting in his car, not doing anything wrong when officers approached, Bowers said.
“I didn’t think it was illegal to sit in your car,” Bowers said. “He’s sitting there, he’s got a pellet gun in his lap and he’s got lights right in his face. I don’t know about you, but if I got a light in my face I probably don’t even know who it is shining a light in my face.”
Quinn Rallins, another family attorney, said that what happened in Lenexa on June 22 is “not a new story for us,” and neither is the decision Howe made not to charge the officer.
“From the very go, he bent over backward to explain every reason why these officers shouldn’t have been held accountable,” said Rallins, of Chicago. “But we know that a jury, a 12-person jury, is going to look very different upon this situation.”
The morning of June 22
The 911 call came in around 3 a.m. June 22. The caller, who spoke Spanish, said “a person was putting a gun to another person’s head” at Lenexa Crossing, Howe said.
“That reporting party then indicated that ‘I am here, close to the pool,’” Howe said. The two officers were dispatched at 3:01 a.m.
“Officer A noticed a vehicle with its lights on,” Howe said. That officer thought he was approaching the reporting party, who said she was close to the pool.”
“He then walked up to the driver’s side of the vehicle to talk to that person,” Howe said. “He got to the driver’s door of that Volkswagen Jetta, and once at the door, he immediately realized that instead of the reporting party, that he was probably now in contact with the potential suspect. That driver … had a gun in his lap.
“The officer immediately saw it and issued commands immediately for the driver to put his hands up and don’t touch the gun.”
From there, Howe said, Cartagena-Chacon moved his hands from where they were on his legs and “placed his right hand on the gun.”
“.… When someone doesn’t comply with one of their commands, it puts their spider senses at alert, because that’s unusual,” Howe said. “Most people comply with the commands of officers, and so that was an aggressive action, because he was doing exactly what the officer told him not to do.”
A 12-page summary handed out to reporters before the news conference included comments from both officers, taken from investigative interviews.
Officer A said he was “surprised” when he realized it was the suspect in the car.
“I see the gun and I don’t get (any) response from him,” that officer told an investigator. “He picks up the gun. I’m backing away from the car, I’m continuing to yell at him.
“… I knew he wasn’t going to have to aim, all he was going to have to do is just quickly bring it up because of how close we were. ”
Officer A continued to say that the “last thing I thought was, ‘He’s about to shoot me and Officer B.’ And then I discharge my firearm. He was going to kill us.”
Officer B said in an interview with investigators that he saw the driver swinging his arm toward the front passenger door. He then heard the shots.
“I felt like if that gun had come any further that I would have to use lethal force, meaning shoot,” Officer B said, according to the summary provided. “I felt like that would have really been my only option. I don’t know what that person would have been capable of.”
The Johnson County Officer Involved Critical Incident Investigative Team investigated the shooting, and the Olathe Police Department served as the host agency.
The Star wrote last month that the officer who shot Chacon was back on the job. A police spokesperson said that the officer was working in a “modified duty capacity” and would continue to do so until the district attorney “provides their ruling.”
Howe said he spoke to family members Thursday morning and discussed the case and explained his decision not to charge the officer.
“Of course they’re upset, they lost a loved one,” Howe said. “I wish them the best moving forward.”
Added Layman, Lenexa’s police chief: “We recognize the pain that this incident has caused, and extend our heartfelt sympathy to those who continue to grieve and process the events of this incident. “
‘Whole life in front of him’
Cartagena-Chacon, who was known by many as Enrique, lived with relatives in Grandview. Police knocked on the family’s door around 7 a.m. June 22 to tell them that the young man had been shot.
Alberto Bernardino, Cartagena-Chacon’s brother-in-law, was outside the courtroom after the news conference with another family member. Bernardino said he’ll miss Cartagena-Chacon’s “happy demeanor.”
“The fact that he’s always willing to help everybody out,” Bernardino said. “No matter what.”
Bowers, a family attorney, said Cartagena-Chacon’s life was needlessly cut short.
“He had his whole life in front of him,” Bowers said. “He’ll never have children. He’ll never have a wife. He’ll never celebrate all of those great instances we all get to celebrate with our families and enjoy our families.
“And these officers can just walk free while his family is devastated. Devastated.”
Cartagena-Chacon’s ashes have been sent back to El Salvador, where Cartagena-Chacon’s mother lives.
“There’s not a day that goes by where she’s not just in tears and she’s torn up,” Bowers said. “You come to America for a better life, and then you go home in a vase and with ashes. I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.
“… They are doing everything they can to cover this up. So we have to seek justice for (the family), that’s why we’re here.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 2:20 PM.
